Top 10 Facts about Anna Akhmatova

Anna Akhmatova photo by Olga Della-Vos-Kardovskaya, 1914- Wikimedia Commons 

Top 10 Facts about Anna Akhmatova

Anna Akhmatova was one of the remarkable Russian poets of the 20^th century.

In the year 1965, she was shortlisted for the Nobel prize and received three nominations the following year.

Her work ranges from short lyric poems to intricately structured cycles such as Requiem and her tragic masterpiece about Stalinist terror.

However, her strong and clear voice struck a new chord in Russian poetry. 

Her never-ending themes include meditations on time and memory whilst the difficulties of living and writing in the shadow of Stalinism.

1. Anna Akhmatova’s Early Life

Anna Akhmatova photo by M.Nappelbaum-Wikimedia Commons

Anna Akhmatova was born on June 23^rd in the year 1889 at Bolshoy Fontan which was a suburb of the black sea port of Odesa.

Her family moved to Tsarskoye Selo near St Petersburg when she was eleven months old.

She moved to Kyiv after her parents divorced in the year 1905 and studied at the Marinska high school where she finished her schooling in the year 1906 to 1910.

Akhmatova went on to study law at Kyiv University, she left a year later to study literature in St Petersburg.

2. She Started Writing Poetry At the Age of 11

Anna Akhmatova photo by Savely Sorin-Wikimedia Commons

Anna Akhmatova having being inspired by poets such as Nikolay Nekrasov, Jean Racine, Alexander Pushkin, Evgeny Baratynsky, and the symbolist.

She started writing poetry at the age of 11and her work was published in her late teens.

3. She had a Book called Akhmatova’s Book of Verse Evening – The First of Five in Nine Years

Anna Akhmatova photo by Unknown-Wikimedia Commons

In the year 1912, the guild of poets published Akhmatova’s book of verse evening-the first of five in nine years.

The small edition of 500 copies quickly should out and she received a dozen positive notices in the literary press.

She exercised a strong selectivity for the pieces including only 35 of the 200 poems she had written by the end of the year 1911.

The book secured her reputation as a new striving young writer.

The poem grey-eyed king, in the forest, over the water and I don’t need my legs anymore made her famous.

4. She was Called The Soul of The Silver Age

Anna Akhmatova photo by Kuzma Petrov-Vodkin-Wikimedia Commons

During Akhmatova’s second collection the rosary which appeared in March in the year 1914 firmly established her as one of the most popular and sought-after poets of the day.

In honor of Akhmatova thousands of women composed her poems mimicking her style and prompting her to exclaim “I taught our women how to speak but don’t know how to make them silent”.

Akhmatova’s aristocratic manners and artistic integrity won her the title “queen of the neva and the soul of the silver age” as the period came to be known in the history of Russian poetry.

5. Anna Akhmatova had a strong cultural influence

Ivana Marburger Themmen who is an American composer and a pianist set Akhmatova’s poetry to music.

However, translations of some of Akhmatova’s poems which were done by Babette Deutsch and Lyn Coffin were set to music on the album the trackless woods by Iris Dement.

Anna Akhmatova is the main character of the Australian play the woman in the window which was directed by Alma De Groen which was premiered at Fairfax studio in Melbourne in the year 1998.

6. Her Husband was Arrested In 1921

In the year 1921 Akhmatova’s former husband Nikolay Gumilev was prosecuted for his alleged role in a monarchist anti-Bolshevik conspiracy therefore in August he was shot along with 61 others.

According to Ray field, a historian the murder of Gumilev was part of the state’s response to the Kronstadt rebellion.

The secret police blamed the rebellion on pterogaurd’s intellectuals prompting the senior of the secret police Yakov Agranov to forcibly extract the names of the conspirators from an imprisoned professor guaranteeing them amnesty from execution.

However, Agranov’s guarantee proved to be meaningless because he sentenced dozen of the named persons to death including Gumilev and others.

7. Her Son was Persecuted on The Basis of His Father

When the police arrested and persecuted Nikolay Gumilev his whole family was under scrutiny and investigation.

When the accused sentencing execution was adhered to there was a vast spread of stigma and fear, the execution had a powerful effect on the Russian intelligentsia.

The secret police destroyed the guild of poetry group and placed a stigma on Akhmatova and her son lev but later on, in the year Lev was arrested on a basis of being his father’s son during the purges and terrors.

8. Anna Akhmatova’s Essay on Pushkin

Her longest work on essays on Pushkin and poems without a hero was published after her death.

The poem was composed between the years 1940 and 1965 and is often critically regarded as her best work and also one of the finest poems of the twentieth century.

However, the poem gives a deep and detailed analysis of her epoch and her approach to it including her important encounter with Isiah Berlin in the year 1909 to 1997.

9. She was Awarded Two Renowned Accolades

Shortly after Anna Akhmatova died in the year 1966 she finally received two richly dissevered accolades for her work.

Ironically the recognition came from abroad in the forms of the prestigious Italian Etna Taormina prize in the year 1964 and an honorary doctor’s degree from Oxford University in the year 1965.

10. She Suffered Heart Failure that Ultimately Led to Her Death

In November 1965, soon after her Oxford visit, Anna Akhmatova suffered a heart attack and was hospitalized.

She was moved to a sanatorium in Moscow in the spring of 1966 and died of heart failure on March 5, at the age of 76.

Thousands attended the two memorial ceremonies, held in Moscow and in Leningrad.

In conclusion, now that Anna Akhmatova’s life’s journey had ended she was renowned as the best Russian woman poet of her time though she was against the brutality of the Soviet Union she did try to change the system through her poetry.

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